Tag: Three days of de Panne

It’s hard to believe that it’s 40 years since UK bike fans read the news that ‘wunderkind’ Dave Lloyd wasn’t going to achieve his dream of riding the Tour de France, in fact, his professional career was over due to a congenital heart complaint.

Well no rubbish today about my trip to the track or my run in with a black cab driver, today is simply about the bike riding.

We were chatting about the Scottish Hour Record the other day and it got us to thinking about Roddy Riddle’s 1995 ride of 46.570 which broke Graeme Obree’s 1990 ride of 46.390 - and lasted one year until Jim Gladwell established the current best of 46.650 in 1996. ‘What’s Roddy up to now?’ we mused - the last we heard he was running across the Sahara in the Marathon des Sables. Transpires he’s participating in the 6633 Ultra. The what? Best ask him...

Guten dag! We honoured Carlos yesterday, so we best pay tribute to Big Marcus today. It's been a great Tour for Columbia - and it's not over yet. We had to be flexible today, the plot was to do a bike feature - the top GC riders plus points and mountains leaders - but the start at Bourg-D'Oisans was so tight for space, with team buses in the village streets that there was no room for the team trucks. These went directly to the hotels at the finish in St. Etienne, so it wasn't the best day to bike skek.

The 2006 edition of the Bec CC Hill Climb was absolutely remarkable on several fronts. Firstly, for the very first time in the history of the event we had a dead heat for 1st place. Gary Dodd of Sigma Sport, and Bill Bell of the Gemini B.C. battled to the line, in atrocious weather to both record a time of 1.49.17. Neither of these 'Kings of the Hill' have, as yet, stuck their heads above the turret for this years event, and neither have they been spotted out reconoitering White Lane in prep for another crack at taking the honours.

Sean Kelly was the ‘King of the Classics’ for many years but the man from Carrick-on-Suir also won the Vuelta a España and many shorter stage races. His record at Liège-Bastogne-Liège is only beaten by Argentin and Merckx. We spoke with the Irishman for his thoughts on the ‘Old Lady’ of the road.